Virtual Bahrain Game Jam goes live

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Bahrain’s “Game Jam 2020”, now in its third edition, went live yesterday where programmers, artists, musicians, story writers and other talents get together to develop games based on a specific theme announced at the beginning of the competition.

Organised jointly by Bahrain Polytechnic and the Bahrain Internet Society (BIS), the seven-day event continues until next Saturday. The event this year includes a variety of awards, where the top three teams will win one PlayStation 5 each.

Judges will announce the winners on 9th January 2021. The competition also plans to host a variety of activities and workshops to recreate the same atmosphere of the annual competition.

The CEO of Bahrain Polytechnic, Dr Jeff Zabudsky said: “As a higher education institution, we want to do our part to promote this initiative to the community, especially since the gaming industry has been one of the biggest industries in today’s economy.”

Abdulla Al Hamed, Chairman of the Bahrain Internet Society, said: “We have hosted two successful Game Jams in the past two years, and lots of amazing games were produced during that time.” He added: “Since we are hosting this Game Jam virtually, this allows local, regional and international participants and jury members to join, for example, one of our jury members is Eiad Dahnim, the former creative director of Sucker Punch Productions that worked on the popular games “The Order 1886” and the “Ghost of Tsushima”.